Tuesday 30th June 2009 10:00 am
Researcher to Study Tweens and Massively Multiplayer Commercial Games
Games can foster certain skills in adults, but what about younger kids?
A growing body of research suggests that video games–especially online gameplay in (massively) multiplayer environments (MMOs) like World of Warcraft or Quest Atlantis–have real intellectual merit.
Games engage players in digital and traditional literacy skills, informal scientific reasoning, collective problem-solving, and even forms of civic and social engagement.
Yet, much of the research has focused on adults playing commercial games. Studies of youth are limited to educational games or sites like Whyville or River City.
So what about younger kids playing MMOs?
This fall, my research team and I will extend our research originally funded by MacArthur by studying commercial MMOs populated nearly exclusively by tweens and teens. With the help of a Spencer Foundation postdoctoral grant, I’ll be examining RuneScape, the single most popular online game among children age 10 to 16.
This work will begin with a “cognitive ethnography” of everyday game play. An ethnography is a form of study that relies on careful observation and in-depth interviews with subjects. We hope to identify common practices, as well as the forms of individual and social cognition that these practices entail. “Individual and social cognition” means, in this case, that we will use as units of analysis both the individual and the group for studying cognition. This is to say, we don’t assume cognition is only located in the individual head but rather is also distributed across groups of people and their tools.
As part of this work, we’re also recruiting about a dozen gaming youth to assess the impact of game play over a longer period of time on their daily lives, social relationships, and school work. We will assess what youth learn through online game play, how that learning aligns or conflicts with educational standards, and how such games fit into the fabric of their everyday experience.
What’s so cool about RuneScape? It has six million active monthly players (making it the single most popular MMO title in the West), it’s browser based and can be played for free, kids love it, and adults hate it. In other words, it’s an ideal context for investigating whether the complex forms of intellectual work found in other MMO games also emerge in online communities that are, for the most part, youth driven, entirely accessible, and thoroughly mainstream.
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Comments
UW-Madison
http://www.constances.org
Posted on July 2 2009 3:58 PM
Daniel, I’d love to talk to you about your work & possible intersections. Email me!
Posted on July 21 2009 4:54 PM
Well while they might be good for problem solving the effect they have on real life experiences and social relationships may be adverse… Its all very well to say this but games like this aren’t exactly making people more fit or improving social standings. Humans are social beings and need regular face to face interaction…
Daniel Siegel
Posted on July 2 2009 6:44 AM
Constance,
I cannot wait to see your research on Runescape. I require all of my students to play Runescape in my course. Many people criticize Runescape because it is low tech. I agree with you that it is a great resource for study because of widespread availability to younger audiences.
Please let me know if we can help you with this study. Most of my students are current teachers who encourage their learners to game.
Good luck!
Excelsior!